Exigency
by Johnny Superfecta
Summary: Clark and Lana spend a sunny April morning together tampering with the continuum of space and time.
1. Chapter 1

Notes: Takes place in season four; post-"Blank", let's say. Refers heavily to events from season three's "Crisis."

**Exigency**

Chloe peered through the windshield of her red VW Beetle as she drove through a light rain. "SMALLVILLE 102.," she saw on a road sign. "The signpost up ahead reads, _The Twilight Zone_," she intoned gravely, and then whistled a few notes of that show's famous theme. Then her cell-phone rang, so she fished it out of a litter-filled cup-holder and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Chloe." It was Clark. They chatted briefly, then she half-listened to a short tirade about Lois Lane, then she said goodbye and replaced the phone. God, what a long day--and there were still a couple hours of driving before she was home and could plop herself into a nice hot bath. What an utter waste of time this trip was--why would that jerk make her drive all this way if he had nothing useful to tell her? She switched on the radio--at least she could enjoy some big-city radio for a while before she was out of range; Smallville had a very limited selection of stations. She was scanning her way through the FM band when something just ahead and a little to her left caught her eye, just as she heard an odd rumbling noise; she looked up and was confronted by a terrible sight. An eighteen-wheeler (the trailer had slewed to the side so that the emblazoned LuthorCorp logo was visible) had crashed through the barrier on the overpass above and was plunging toward her.

"Oh, shit," Chloe said, and swerved.

------------

From the April 29, 2005 Smallville Ledger:  
**HIGHWAY ACCIDENT KILLS HONOR STUDENT**  
_...Chloe Sullivan, 18, an occasional contributor to this newspaper, died instantly when her car was crushed by a runaway LuthorCorp transport. The driver suffered severe injuries but is expected to recover..._

------------

Clark Kent sat in his loft, alone, staring vacantly out the window. When he had gone down to breakfast, his parents had looked thunderstruck; they immediately sat him down and told him what had happened. He had protested--didn't they remember how we all thought she was dead last year? No, there had to be more to it, something unexplained that someone had missed. He went on like this while his parents looked at him sadly. Inwardly he felt it, though; this had the ring of truth. Chloe hadn't been blown up or murdered by a meteor freak--she had died in a car wreck. It was too ordinary to be a lie.

He did have to be sure, though. He had super-sped his way into the morgue at the Smallville Medical Center to see for himself, and it had broken his heart, to see her mangled body lying there.

Now he sat, and thought. He really couldn't take this, her being dead again. The future stretched out before him, looking grey and bleak without his best friend. He still had people he loved and who loved him, and life would go on--it just wouldn't be much fun.

This was the second bout of grieving he had done up in the loft this year; Alicia Baker had been murdered in the winter. And back then, in thinking about how, before, he had always gotten to his friends in time when they were in danger, he remembered something; that someone else he loved had once died and he'd been able to undo it. Lana had been killed, shot in the back by Adam Knight--one day forward into the future. Before her death, though, she placed a telephone call to Clark that had been received at two separate times; the present, and one day earlier. If he could do what she had done, contact himself in the past, he could avert the tragedy. But how?

He had failed, before; a little less than three months ago. The idea came to him late in the day, perhaps too late, or perhaps Lana's call had been a one-in-a-billion convergence of variables, impossible to reconstruct. Originally, the utility pole outside the teen center had gone down in a storm, falling into a pool of rainwater containing shards of Kryptonite. Clark had tried to recreate this at home; with the reluctant aid of his father in handling the meteor rock. Electricity, telephone lines, water, Kryptonite; he had tried, and failed, not knowing why. He had attended Alicia's funeral the next day; Chloe had come over and comforted him at her grave.

Now it was Chloe who was dead, and he would try again--what else was there to do?

He felt like crying, and restrained himself. "Focus." he said aloud. "Mourn her later." Okay; what could he do to improve his chances this time? Well, he would make the attempt earlier; it was less than twelve hours since the accident. What else? He didn't know--and Chloe was the one he called when he needed something figured out. But was there someone else who could help? The image came to him, of a dark-haired girl sitting at a counter, intently reading a book entitled _Theories of Time Travel_.

--------

Lana Lang had called Clark just as he was reaching for the phone to dial her number--she had just heard the news herself. She was crying, and a little incoherent--Clark told her to stay there and he would come over, and she was still crying when he arrived.. He led her outside and into the truck, suggesting they go for a drive.

They had been on the road for a couple minutes when he asked, "Lana, do you remember Adam Knight?"

She stopped sniffling and went quiet, seemingly stunned, then angrily started, "Clark, why on earth would you bring up...of course I remember--"

He cut her off. "He killed you, in the future--but you placed a call that reached me, in the past, and I stopped it."

Lana looked at Clark, taking in his calm, almost cold-blooded demeanour. She was now thinking clearly for the first time since she had heard about Chloe, and she understood, and said tenderly, "Oh. Oh, Clark. I'm sorry, but...I don't think it's possible."

"No; it probably isn't. Gives us something to do, though," he said, a touch sharply. Lana gave no response to this, and they drove on.

------------

The Kents were away from the farm--they were with Gabe Sullivan. Clark and Lana sat on the porch, where he was telling her about his failed attempt at trans-temporal communication following Alicia's death.

"...and I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time--I might've gotten things mixed up."

Lana was feeling better now that she had something to work on, and said, "Okay; what happened with me before was this: I called the teen center at the same time the telephone pole outside came down. The call went to the cellular transmission tower, then along the telephone wire, and--"

"--through a pool of electrified water containing Kr--meteor rock."

"Um, right, and then to the crisis-line telephone that you answered. But that's just what we know about. Atmospheric conditions could've played a part; there was a storm going on. Or it might've been the time of year, the position of the Earth--."

"But you're right; we don't know about any of that. We can't generate a storm, or change the rotation of the planet."

"No, we can't. Clark, there's also...did you ever consider the possibility that it _did_ work before, with Alicia, but you just weren't able to do anything to prevent her death? You barely got to me in time, even with a warning from the future."

Clark actually hadn't considered this--he did so now. It was possible, of course. He had certainly failed her the first time; why not the second?

Lana echoed that thought. "You aren't infallible--it only _seems_ like you are, sometimes,." she said with a small smile.

He looked at her balefully for a moment, then something occurred to him. "Wait, if this had worked before, wouldn't I remember getting that message and then failing to save Alicia?"

"Maybe not. Who knows if we can affect the reality we're currently in? You might have saved Alicia in the past and not ever known anything about it. Sending a message back to yesterday and preventing Chloe's death might just create a time-line where she lives, in addition to the one you and I are in, where she died. We'd just...go on without her, not knowing if we'd succeeded."

Clark was getting frustrated. "Even if this worked, Chloe would still be dead, here?"

"Maybe, but if so, at least she'd be alive somewhere. Or some_when_, rather," she added diffidently. "Or perhaps we can change the events in our own past. Then, I guess, we would cease to exist--everything that's happened in the past twenty-four hours would suddenly...not have happened, if you follow."

Clark didn't, not really. In his defense, he hadn't seen very many time-travel movies. "So...wait. Wouldn't we lose..." He tried again. "Would we just vanish, and become the Clark and Lana from yesterday, with no memory of this?"

"I guess so. Look, I'm flattered you think I have the answers to these questions, but I only read one book, and they were _theories_ of time travel; no one's actually done it. That we know about, anyway."

His patience ran out. "Well, this isn't getting us anywhere," he said, standing up. "I'll pull down the power and telephone lines; you go inside and get the meteor rock. There's some in the hall closet, on the top shelf; it's in a metal box."

END PART ONE


	2. Chapter 2

**Exigency**

"Clark, are you all right? You look sick." He felt sick, of course; it was the Kryptonite. He was finding it difficult to keep away from the stuff while at the same time keeping Lana from learning its effect on him. Earlier, he'd grabbed a spade from the barn and deepened a natural depression in the ground a few yards away from the house, then turned the hose on it, making a pool of water. Lana had added the Kryptonite, taking a mallet to it and breaking it up into a number of pieces. The downed power and telephone lines lay next to the pool; Clark wore a pair of thick rubber gloves, ostensibly to protect him from the live power cable. A wave of nausea hit him again, harder this time; he went down on one knee and crawled off to the side, finally getting to a safe distance and collapsing in a sweaty heap.

"Clark!" Lana was beside him. "That's it; I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No, no." He felt okay--he'd just tell her he had a stomach bug and...boy, this was ridiculous. Enough, already--what did it matter, now? "No, I'm fine, really. It's just...the meteor rock. I get sick when I'm too close to it."

She looked puzzled. "What? Since when?"

"Since always." He could hardly believe he was telling her this, but he was beyond caring, at the moment.

"Always? But..." She thought back over the years--memories of Clark retreating from her with a pained expression on his face flooded in. "The necklace I wore...oh, Clark, you idiot. Why didn't you just tell me? Is it...some kind of allergy?"

"Not quite. It's complicated, but I'll tell you later. I'll tell you, I promise, but, right now, can we just..."

"Yeah. Okay." Lana looked at him pensively. Doubt hit him, along with his instinct toward secrecy--had that been a good idea? Maybe not, but he found that he badly wished he had told Chloe, now that she was dead.

"Clark? Who was home, yesterday at..." She looked at her watch. "11:45?"

"I thought of that--my mom was here all day, and the machine will pick up if she can't answer the phone for some reason. What are you going to say?"

She thought for a moment. "We can't assume that it will be like before, that the call will go back exactly one day into the past. The call won't be recorded, most likely--"

Clark saw her point, and broke in. "Right--we knew what time you were...going to die, by that basketball game in the background, on the radio."

"And we don't know how much time we'll have; the message has to be short. 'Keep Chloe off the highway on April twenty-fourth,' does that sound good?"

Clark agreed, and there was nothing else either of them could think of--they were ready. Lana asked hesitantly, "Clark, are you all right to do the wires? Maybe I should--"

"No, stay there. I can do it--I'll be fine." Lana's death by electrocution would be the perfect end to a perfect day, he thought bitterly. He walked a circuitous path to where the wires lay on the gravel, while Lana dialed the first six digits of the Kents' number. The two of them nodded at each other, then Lana punched in the seventh as Clark stepped forward and dropped the lines into the pool--his knees buckled and he quickly lurched away. Green-tinged electricity crackled across the surface of the water. He heard the phone ring from inside the house once, twice, and now Lana was shouting into her cell-phone.

"Mrs. Kent!" she cried, and then delivered the message. She began to repeat it, but stopped. "Hello? Mrs. Kent?" The phone had gone dead, and the ringing from inside had stopped.

"Lana?"

"No service--now it says no service. Clark, I heard your mom's voice, I know I did. Damn it, the signal was at full a second ago." As occupied as his mind was with the fate of Chloe and the laws of time and space, Clark couldn't help but smile at Lana's mild and very rare expletive. He walked over to her. The sky darkened, as if a cloud had passed before the sun.

"Lana, look." The pool had stopped crackling--evidently the power was out.

She turned to him. "Oh. What do we do now, Clark?"

"I don't know." He took her hand. "Let's sit down." They walked over to the porch and sat beside one another on the bench. She shivered. The temperature had dropped; it was no longer a nice spring day. He took off his jacket and gave it to her.

"I heard your mom's voice, Clark, and I think she heard me; I heard her say my name. Do you think it worked?"

The sky was still getting darker--now it seemed like early evening, though no moon was visible. "Yeah, I think it did," he replied. Before they started this, they put Shelby inside to keep him out of the way--he was barking now, and scratching at the door. Lana let him out, and he ran to Clark, whined, and looked at him plaintively. Being scratched behind the ears and told that he was a good dog soothed him, and he crawled under the bench and lay down.

Lana sat. "What's going to happen to us?" She sounded scared, and Clark put his arm around her. He felt a twinge of panic, and tried to quell it. Was there a difference between ceasing to exist, and dying?

"We'll be all right," he said, trying to convince himself. "It will be like...going to sleep, and when we wake up, it'll be yesterday and Chloe will be alive."

She nestled in close to him. "Will it, she asked, unsure. She looked out at the empty road and the fields beyond, and said, "I wonder if Adam ever actually did shoot me? Or did you always get to me in time?" Clark started to say something, but she stopped him. "Forget it; it doesn't matter. Clark, before, you promised you'd tell me...about the meteor rocks..."

"I always wanted to tell you," he said, not entirely believing it.. He paused; this was hard. He wasn't going to have to deal with the ramifications of telling her, and still he could barely bring himself to do it. He suddenly felt ashamed, and spat it out. "The rocks hurt me because I come from the same place as they do. I came to Earth with them, in the meteor shower."

"Came to Earth?" She pulled away, and Clark thought, I knew it, I knew it, I was right all along not to tell. She'll think you're a freak, she'll hate you for killing her parents...at least I was right about that, if nothing else.

She studied his face in the failing light. It sounded absurd, but she believed him, of course, and a thousand pieces fell into place for her. So that was it. She felt tired, and sad--all that wasted time, all of that angst. And it would continue, for the Lana of yesterday. How did she feel about him now? She didn't know, really, but she didn't want to be alone, so she took his arm and put it back around her, and leaned against him once more.

"That's interesting," she said. The last of the light faded away, and they were surrounded by darkness, and silence. All they could feel was each other, the bench, and the floor beneath their feet. Clark held her tighter--he was crying gently..

And suddenly everything was gone, including them.

------------

"Clark, honey?" Martha Kent looked slightly perplexed as she addressed her son, who had just come in the door. "I got the strangest telephone call a little while ago--it sounded like Lana, but I could barely hear her. Then I called her back, but she said she didn't know anything about it."

"Huh. What did she say, the first time?" She told him, and then the phone rang. He answered it, and Lana said, "Clark! I'm glad you're there; I was going to leave a message for you with your mom. Did she tell you--"

"Yeah, she did."

"A static-filled call from me that I don't remember making; what does that remind you of?"

-----------

Chloe Sullivan gave her dad a kiss on the cheek and bounded downstairs and out the door into the bright sunshine--no April showers today in Smallville. She made a beeline for her car--she had finally found a man who could help her with a story she'd been running to earth for weeks, but he was in Metropolis and would only talk face-to-face. To her surprise, and pleasure, her friends Clark Kent and Lana Lang were standing by her car.

"Hey, you guys look like you're waiting for me! Anyone up for a road trip to Metropolis?"

They smiled. Lana said, "We were thinking more along the lines of coffee at the Talon."

"Can't today--tomorrow, though, definitely. Gotta go, there's a guy in the city--really, Clark, I'm going to need you to move." He was blocking her access to the driver's-side door, and showed no inclination to budge. "A quick cup of coffee," he said, still smiling. "Come on, Chloe, when have you ever been able to pass that up?"

"Honestly, Clark, any other time--"

"We insist," said Lana. Chloe looked at her, then back at Clark, who nodded firmly. "Okay, fine, you win," she said, only a little annoyed, "but what's with the strong-arm treatment? I know I'm a delight to be around, but really, you're just _this_ side of freaking me out." The three friends walked up the street, and Lana began, "Do you remember Adam Knight?"

END


End file.
